Quarter Century of 


isstonary Education 


A Quarter Century of 


Missionary Education 


SILVER BAY—A Tribute 


The picturesque name ts a symbol of some of the sunni- 
est and brightest realities in life. Just as the morning sun 
casts a silver radiance upon the lake, so the spirit of Silver 
Bay touches into mystery and flame the lives of its devo- 
tees. As the mountains gird this place about and give tt 
dignity and power, so its spirit imparts strength and as- 
piration to those who love tt. 

Silver Bay ts more than a beauty spot in the Adiron- 
dacks, tt is a quality of life, unique and enduring. It ts an 
unfolding mystery, a deepening bond of fellowship, a mar- 
tial call to action, a quiet summons to meditation and 
prayer, and the most searching challenge to the deepest and 
sincerest in one’s being, a call to lay one’s life bare to God. 

One can hardly face the essential principle of Silver Bay 
and go away unchanged. He will be disquteted with his 
noisy shallowness, reproached for his coldness and scant 
human sympathy, and reminded of hits unnecessary dis- 
tance from God. He will recetve more than a passing 
glimpse of the man he was meant to be, the personality he 
may yet become through a new and hitherto undreamed 
of loyalty to Christ. 

Life mounts high at Silver Bay, ts stirred to vaster 
thought and action and leaves behind the paltry minor 
concerns which once cramped our days. Silver Bay, with 
its assemblage of strong and devoted personalities, its 
vision of world need and potential world brotherhood, tts 
demonstration of vital Christian living, tts surpassing rev- 
elation of God, lays the deepest tribute of affection and al- 
legiance upon those of us who have known tts spell. If the 
power of God is at all manifest in our lives, it 1s due in no 
small measure to the abiding inspiration of Silver Bay. 

ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD, 
AUTHOR of ANN OF AVA 
and ‘THE MOFPATS. 


A Quarter Century of 


Missionary Education 


POOZE LOZ 


MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 


New York 


Foreword 


versary of the founding of the Missionary 

Education Movement, the Board of Mana- 
gers authorized the publication of a Silver 
Jubilee Booklet that should tell briefly the his- 
tory of this Movement, give its present organi- 
zation, and suggest some important things re- 
garding the future of missionary education. 


ik commemoration of the twenty-fifth anni- 


To prepare this booklet, a committee was 
appointed consisting of Miss Ruth Isabel Sea- 
bury.) Miss: Lucy. Cosotureiseand tae erie 
Sailer. 


This committee was fortunate in being able 
to persuade a number of the people who helped 
organize the Movement to contribute sections 
on its early history. Several of these sections, as 
will be recognized, are in the form of letters to 
various members of the committee. 


We wish to express our appreciation of the 
committee's work and to thank the various 
friends of the Movement whose contributions 
make this booklet so interesting. 


THE STAFF. 


Yesterday 


. . While here I stand, not only with the sense 
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
That in this moment there is life and food 
For future years. 


— WORDSWORTH 


Introduction and Retrospect 


“In July, 1902, the first summer conference in the 
world for Mission Study met at Silver Bay, New York. 
Its Silver Jubilee will be celebrated this summer.’’ This is 
quoted from the invitation to the 1927 conference. 

‘Time surely flies, and in this case the thoughts of those 
who were at Silver Bay in 1902 fly back no less surely to 
the impressions and problems and thrills of that first con- 
ference, and linger there in gratitude for the privilege of 
having been present when the tracks were laid for the 
Missionary Education Movement that has moved so far 
since then. 

Perhaps it is appropriate that one who had no responsi- 
bility whatever for that first conference should be asked 
to review its program and results, for my impressions were 
those of the very group for which the movement was 
started. I went to Silver Bay in 1902 as a ““Young Per- 
son,’ reasonably intelligent and zealous as to the work of 
my own denomination, and eager to know how others 
were meeting the need for better missionary leadership and 
training of young people in colleges and local churches. As 
I look back it seems to me that most of the one hundred 
and ninety-five delegates that year were experts;——secre- 
taries of missionary boards, official leaders of young peo- 
ples’ organizations, educational celebrities, etc., and I came 
away with the conviction that all that expertness had been 
applied with perfect success in three directions: 

First, there was conference, such conference as, it is safe 
to say, has never been held since in quite the same sense, 
for the missionary educational problems and plans of each 


7 


denomination were laid down side by side and compared 
and combined and, to a certain extent, mutually solved 
for the first time. 


Second, there resulted the official association of the rep- 
resentatives of all the missionary societies present into the 
“Young Peoples’ Missionary Movement,” the aim of 
which was stated to be—‘’To assist denominational agen- 
cies in the development of a deeper missionary life among 
young people; and in all ways to serve the denominational 
Boards whose representatives constitute its Executive Com- 
mittee.’’ This, in course of time, grew up into the Mission- 
ary Education Movement, as we know and benefit by it 
now. 


The third success of those experts who made up the first 
conference was certainly the effect their efforts produced 
upon the little group of young people who, to their own 
great good fortune, had somehow drifted in to Silver Bay 
that year among the elect, upon whom they tested their 
theories, and to whom they presented their inspiring mis- 
sionary appeals. It would be interesting, if it were possible, 
to make a survey of those young people to see where they 
are today and what they are up to; but even without that, 
I would be almost ready to guarantee—having been one 
of them—that each one would be found engaged in an at- 
tempt to ‘‘deepen the missionary life of young people,”’ 
and convinced that interdenominational cooperation is of 
great value towards that end. 


By way of gathering up the record from various points 
of view, I have asked some of the aforementioned experts 
to have part in this retrospect, and extracts from their let- 


8 


ters follow;—but before ending my own part, I must, in 
very gratitude to these same leaders, in loyalty to the Mis- 
sionary Education Movement and in love for Silver Bay, 
add my own tribute. 

That was my first conference; my first experience of 
sharing with others things hitherto safeguarded, on my 
part, in true New Egland cold-storage style; and it was 
my first opportunity to come into close relation to those of 
other communions than my own. I have been to many 
conferences since then, conferences of all types, at home 
and abroad, and I do not think it is the glamour of first 
impressions alone that makes my heart glow and my en- 
thusiasm kindle with peculiar joy at the thought of Silver 
Bay and the M. E. M. Conferences of special groups, and 
denominational conferences are fine and most necessary in 
their way; but in very truth I believe that where Chris- 
tians of all branches of the universal Church of Christ 
come together in His name to discover ways by which 
they may work more closely with Him for the coming of 
His kingdom, His prayer for the unity of His Church is 
answered and the world is just that much nearer to be- 
lieving in Him as the King of Kings. 


EUGcY, CasTURGIS, 
Protestant Episcopal Department of Missions. 


The Second CAnticsor: 1903 


Before the Movement 


Young men and women from our churches who had 
gone to college and seminary were attending summer con- 
ferences, and a few of them were in mission classes study- 
ing missions and discussing how to organize a mission de- 
partment in the student associations of the colleges and 
seminaries. These young people thought occasionally of 
their home churches, and at least one of them determined 
at a student conference that if ever he had a chance he 
would hold such a conference for church young people, to 
discuss similar topics for church work. 

The development of the various young people’s socie- 
ties afforded opportunity to have missionary committees 
or departments in them. One young people’s leader in 
Canada and at least three in the United States prior to 
1900 had made some kind of start in training young 
people in missionary work. Young men from colleges 
were trained a few days and then sent to churches, to 
make a misisonary speech, to organize a missionary de- 
partment, to sell a missionary library. “The conferences 
and calls and sales frequently occupied several days at a 
church. These libraries formed the basis of program meet- 
ings, reading contests and discussion in the church. 

In 1900 a sectional meeting of the Ecumenical Confer- 
ence discussed missions and young people. The College As- 
sociation methods and the Young People’s Society meth- 
ods were the prevailing notes in the gathering. “The com- 
mittee appointed never really functioned. However, some 
members of this committee stirred around in the summer 


11 


and autumn of 1901 and called a meeting in New York 
in December to discuss Missions and Young People, and it 
is surprising how the principles and some methods indi- 
cated at that time still seem to hold. As the time for ad- 
journment drew near it was evident that the matter was 
not all completed. Some honest people thought that one 
meeting three days long would end the discussion. There 
would be no more to say. A committee was appointed to 
arrange another meeting if thought necessary. 

At the Student Volunteer Convention in Toronto in 
1902 this committee met and decided to call a conference 
for Silver Bay in July, 1902. Mr. C. V. Vickrey was ap- 
pointed executive secretary for the conference and did this 
work while also carrying on his other work. 


At Silver Bay, 1902 


At the first conference there were no parallel sessions. 
Everyone went to everything. Dr. Beach taught the mis- 
sion study class. There was a Bible class, one hour was de- 
voted to methods, there were one or two platform meet- 
ings each day. Mr. Paine, whose guests we really were, 
took one hour in leading our music in the singing of great 
hymns and telling their stories. Recently these notes have 
been worked into a volume for distribution. 

The committee, however, that had been working for 
some months, was meeting daily and sometimes several 
times daily and twice early in the morning as well as late 
at night. It slowly dawned on all that not all questions 
relating to young people and missions were to be answered 
at this conference and it would be necessary to hold an- 


12 


other. ‘There was no money. Arising early one morning 
the committee met for prayer an hour before breakfast. 
Those were anxious moments. We were conscious of the 
young people in our churches, we knew of their ignor- 
ance, we knew a little about missions, we were uncertain 
about the will of God. 

That afternoon a committee presented a simple state- 
ment of organization and it was adopted. Mr. Vickrey was 
elected secretary to work through the year and work up 
the conference next summer. There was no budget. Two 
of the secretaries pledged from their own budgets to make 
the start, and here began the Board support of the Move- 
ment. Individuals present pledged and other secretaries 
pledged later, and the budget of about $2,500 for a part 
of a year was secured and an office opened in the late 
autumn. 

That young man at Lake Geneva, declaring that such a 
conference of young people as the student conference he 
was then attending must be held, those secretaries work- 
ing among young people, those students visiting young 
people’s societies and selling libraries, those group meet- 
ings in New York and Toronto, and the meeting of three 
men at Silver Bay in 1901 that dreamed out some things 
of the next few months, now are assuredly seen as move- 
ments of God. 


The Expansion Abroad 


The idea was communicated in written and printed 
form to correspondents in Europe and in a few years peo- 
ple from there were coming here and some from here were 


13 


going there. Several countries in Europe, Africa and Asia 
picked up the idea, and movements something like this 
were established in those countries. 

In 1911 a conference in Lunteren, Holland, was the 
first and only of the international conferences. But many 
small conferences have been held by visitors. 


The Expansion at Home 


In 1903 there was a conference at Lookout Mountain, 
the first of the Blue Ridge Conferences. Then conferences 
were held in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Maine, 
Colorado, Washington and California; some are still in 
existence and some never met but once. 

The development of other types of church conferences 
both denominational and interdenominational, with mis- 
sionary sections, has changed the conditions in home 
churches. 

Another expansion was the organization of the Sunday 
School Conferences, five of which were held at Silver Bay. 
The combination of the Sunday School Conference with 
the Missionary Education Conference changed the program 
and these changes are still maintained in principle. This 
also was a factor in changing the name to Missionary Edu- 
cation Movement to represent the entire church. 


HARRY S. MYERS, 
Secretary for Stereopticon Lectures, Mov- 
ing Pictures and Exhibits, Board of 
Misstonary Cooperation, Northern Bap- 
tist Convention. 


14 


The First Year 


Dear Friends: 

I have before me the original draft of the minutes of 
the first meeting of the ‘“‘Executive Committee of the 
Young People’s Missionary Movement in the Silver Bay 
Hotel, Lake George, N. Y., 2 p. m., Wednesday, July 16, 
1902,” and I[ note the resolution that a secretary to the 
Committee on Conferences be elected at a salary of $100 
per month, provided satisfactory arrangements can be 
made with the Bureau of Missions for part of the salary, 
or when the Committee on Conferences can provide for 
the salary. 

At a later meeting—July 21—tthe question arose as to 
“whether the action of July 18, electing a secretary, com- 
mitted the Executive Committee to the permanent policy 
of a paid secretary,’ and a further resolution was unani- 
mously adopted ‘‘that it is understood that the Executive 
Committee, by this action, does not commit itself to the 
policy of a permanent paid secretary, nor does it involve 
financially any of the Boards represented.” 

Such was the timidity of the Committee in suggesting 
continued or new organization for the conduct of the 
conferences. 

In the first budget adopted later in the same day, there 
was no provision made either for office rent or for a type- 
writer and office fixtures, the suggestion being that the 
secretary could doubtless handle the correspondence on his 
own typewriter from his home. 

Mr. S. Earle Taylor, however, at once drafted a policy 
for the year ending September 1, 1903, which included 


15 


for 1903 three interdenominational summer conferences 
and an educational promotion campaign that would have 
taxed the office facilities of a well organized mission board. 
Many of his plans were more than realized. By 1906 the 
attendance at the Silver Bay Conference had been built up 
to 611, and one year nearly one hundred registration fees 
were turned back to late applicants. Other summer con- 
ferences had been organized West and South; new series 
of mission textbooks published, and mid-winter mission- 
ary institutes organized from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
The idea had gripped and has had increasing favor with 
missionary agencies since. 


The review of these early minutes recalls prominently 
the names of Mr. Luther Wishard, Dr. S. Earle Taylor, 
Dry AY W. Halsey, De RPs Mckay, Dr A ee Philene 
Dr. (now Bishop) William M. Bell, Dr. A. DeWitt 
Mason, Dr. Harry S. Meyers and Miss Ella D. MacLaurin. 
Dr. John F. Goucher was present at many of the sessions 
as counselor. 


In that day, of course, the hotel was the private prop- 
erty of Silas H. Paine, having not yet been acquired by 
the Silver Bay Association. 


I cannot tell you how sorry I am not to be with you 
and [ can truthfully say that missing the Silver Bay 
Twenty-fith Anniversary this year is the biggest price that 
I pay personally in being absent from the country during 
the summer. 


16 


Remember me kindly to all my friends and tell them 
that though I am missing the Silver Anniversary I chal- 
lenge them to meet me at the Golden Jubilee. 


Fraternally yours, 


CPV MN ACKREY, 
General Secretary Near East Relief. 


Getting Started 


My dear Miss Seabury: 


Your letter has called forth more memories than I dare 
dream about. First, the need of a missionary education 


Miss Hubbard's Study Class 


UY 


movement. At the time of its organization there were few 
Young People’s departments, only about three or four 
connected with the Mission Boards. However, these felt 
deeply the futile program of the Young People’s societies 
in our churches, which simply meant—‘‘holdin’ prayer 
meetin’ once a week,’ and saying the same thing over and 
over again. In 1898 the Yale Band and [| visited 77 cities, 
and our investigation proved the tremendous need of a 


new program. 


In 1900 at the time of the Ecumenical Conference 
which was held in New York, those interested in the 
Young People’s work met, under the leadership of Dr. 
Mott and Luther Wishard, and discussed a Missionary 
Education Movement. The next year we met at Silver 
Bay and faced the situation, deciding to organize. The 
following year we began to meet opposition and for several 
years it was difficult to secure from the Boards appropria- 
tions for the expense of the Conferences at Silver Bay. 
However, we did, and chose with great care our delega- 
tions, which grew by leaps and bounds. The Silver Bay 
Association was organized to buy the property and put 
up a building. 

I never shall forget when we met in the new building 
for the first time. We dedicated a room in the tower for 
prayer and intercession. There were many difficulties, but 
the need was so great and the young people so responsive 
that we believed there was a future for the movement 


18 


I could tell you many tales of those early sessions that 
were both humorous and pathetic, but through it all the 
faith and courage and consecration of that little group 
never wavered for a moment. 

With kindest regards, I am 

Very cordially yours, 
ELLA D. MACLAURIN, 
Executive Secretary Federation of Woman’s 
Boards of Foreign Misstons of North 
America. 


Cooperation 


My dear Miss Seabury: 


Your kind letter requesting me to write a letter for the 
Twenty-fifth Silver Bay Anniversary booklet has suddenly 
reversed my thinking machinery. In an instant I am back 
to a conference held in the Assembly Hall, 156 Fifth Ave- 
nue, New York City, in December, 1901. 


At that conference, a dearth of suitable missionary lit- 
erature, maps and accessories, the lack of trained leaders, 
and many other problems were discussed. At the close, 
a committee was appointed. Fourteen persons were named, 
no two of whom represented the same dznomination. 
The names were as follows: Rev. A. DeW. Mason, Luther 
D. Wishard, Rev. Charles Rhoades, John W. Wood, Rev. 
Rufus W. Miller, D.D., S. Earl Taylor, W. Henry Grant, 
Rev. P. L. Cobb, F. C. Stephenson, M.D., Rev. William 
Nee belo ee Reveal ebiilipse lO: De Rev. Keres 
Mackay, Rev. Rivington D. Lord, D.D., James Wood. 


19 


This committee was charged with the responsibility of 
calling another conference. The conference was called 
and held at Silver Bay in 1902, at which the Young 
People’s Missionary Movement was organized. 

It is very difficult to think back to the days when there 
was no co-operation between denominations, no graded 
missionary literature, no standards for grades, no training 
classes for leaders. We wonder how we got along without 
interdenominational co-operation, and without the fellow- 
ship we have today. International co-operation and fel- 
lowship such as we now have through the United Council 
for Missionary Education of Great Britain and the Mis- 
sionary Education Movement of the United States and 
Canada, was hardly thought of. 

My letter would grow wearisome if I undertook even 
to mention the variety and grades of missionary literature 
which have been prepared for our Sunday schools and 
Young People’s Societies, and what a change it would 
make in the thought life, especially of Canada and the 
United States, if it were possible to blot out the sympathy 
and fellow-feeling—tthe international mind——which has 
been developed in our churches through missions study 
classes, summer conferences, conventions and training in- 
stitutes! All this work has prepared tens of thousands to 
appreciate the news in our daily papers and the articles 
on international relations in our magazines. 

We all know that we have hardly grasped the signifi- 
cance of our Lord’s command, ‘‘Go ye into all the world, 
preach, teach, heal.’’ We have only begun to interest our 
churches in the great missionary enterprise at home and 


20 


abroad, although the watchword for over twenty-five years 
has been, ‘“The evangelization of the world in this gen- 
eration.”’ There are perhaps as many millions still un- 
reached as there were a generation ago. 

There seems to be just as much need as ever there was 
for the Student Campaign Bands, which really laid the 
foundation of the Young People’s Missionary Movement 
with its motto, “Pray, Study, Give.” 

May we not hope that the celebration of the 25th 
Anniversary of Silver Bay, will mark the enlistment of the 
young life of the churches of this generation for a more 
aggressive and wider movement than has been. 


I am yours for ‘‘greater things,” 
F, L. STEPHENSON, 
Secretary of Young People’s Missionary 
Education of the United Church of 
Canada. 


The First Silver Bay Conference 


We have all felt as we sat in the grandstand and watched 
a baseball or rugby game, “‘What a thrill!’ And we felt 
it the more if we happened to have a special interest in 
the game. I have something of that feeling as I look back 
over the twenty-five years that have gone and recall the 
first Silver Bay Conference and a few of its outstanding 
personnel. I say outstanding so far as my memory goes. 
I was one of the 195 delegates who met in the Assembly 
Hall of 156 Fifth Avenue, December 11-12, 1901, to face 
a formidable questionnaire as to what was being done and 
what ought to be done in the interests of missions amongst 


Zi 


the 5,000,000 members of Y. P. S. and the 14,000,000 
Sunday school children in the United States and Canada. 
We were but a veritable Gideon’s Band entering upon 
a contest with the powers of darkness, for the revelations 
of that first Conference were really appalling, so little was 
being done. A committee was appointed of which Luther 
D. Wishard was Chairman and W. Henry Grant, Secre- 
tary to make arrangements as to time and place of another 
conference, which proved to be the first Silver Bay Con- 
ference, and the first stage of the Young People’s Mission- 
ary Movement now known as the Missionary Education 
Movement. Whereunto it has grown with its regional 
conferences, institutes, publications, exhibits and financial 
struggles and especially its magnificent results, will no 
doubt be fully set forth in the Memorial Booklet being 
prepared. But no booklet will ever fully record results as 
they exist today in lives, both in Home and Foreign fields. 
We do not now know and much less did we then know 
what the harvest was to be. We only had the conviction 
that what ought to be done could be done, and that prayer 
can remove mountains, and certainly the conferences of 
that time were permeated through and through with a 
spirit of intercession. It is not necessary to see the end 
from the beginning—‘‘as thy day shall thy strength be.”’ 
Some of these leaders I recall with affectionate admira- 
tion. W. Henry Grant,—of course he was there,—a 
great organizer, capable of infinite detail, at the beginning 
of how many great movements I do not know. I only 
know they were great and many, and that he was there, 
touching the springs, and with self-effacing modesty. 


De. 


Luther D. Wishard, who has but recently gone to his 
reward, stands out as a man of splendid courage and self- 
sacrifice and breezy withal. He was not a man of means, 
but took an Oriental trip and spent his all in order to 
qualify for intelligent promotion of mission interest in 
the home land. He too was an organizer. He planted 
good seed and was the inspiring promoter of many a great 
movement that he left to grow in other hands. 

S. Earl Taylor was a front rank man for such work. 
Nothing daunted him if he thought it desirable. If any 
criticism could be offered it was an excess of optimism and 
daring. He had splendid vision, was a powerful advo- 
cate, and had an enthusiasm that consumed him. 

But what shall I more say? Like the writer of He- 
brews, time would fail me to speak of Goucher and Vick- 
rey and Hicks and Haggard and Michener and Sailer and 
Ehnes and Soper and Myers and Diffendorfer. “These men 
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness and were some- 
times tormented, even if they did not quench the violence 
of fire. 

Some remain to this day, but some are fallen asleep. 
They all fought a good fight, and will reap the reward. 


ReeReMACKAYs 
Secretary Emeritus of the Board of Mts- 
sions, United Church of Canada. 


Leaders With Vision 
Dear Friends: 


I am glad to respond to your request for reminiscences 
of Silver Bay. My first visit to the Silver Bay Conference 


pH) 


was in 1905, during the first year of my secretaryship. 
The leading spirits that year were Professor T. H. P. 
Sailer, Mr. Harry Wade Hicks, Mr. C. V. Vickery, Miss 
Lucy Sturgis and Dr. John F. Goucher. Please note what 
a mingling there was of the young and the old. Mr. Hicks 
presided at the sessions and did so admirably, giving the 
conference an air of precision and yet of deep spiritual 
earnestness. I was greatly impressed, as everything of this 
kind was new to me. 

I shall never forget the day when Dr. Goucher took 
about a dozen of us in a launch to a retired spot on an 
island in Lake George. At the end of a beautiful bay, 
while we were sitting around on rocks and stumps, Dr. 
Goucher opened his heart to us as to the future of the 
Missionary Education Movement, with particular refer- 
ence to Silver Bay. He was the most far-visioned man I 
have ever known and I was profoundly impressed by the 
fact that a person of his years was so deeply concerned 
over the proper training of the young in respect to mis- 
sions. A good many of the things which have since come 
to pass were in his mind at that early day. When I think 
how such leaders as Miss Ethel Putney, who afterwards 
became my personal secretary and then went out to take 
charge of that important school in Constantinople, the 
Gedik Pasha; Miss Ethel Hubbard, who has become fam- 
ous as a writer of mission study books; and Miss Cornelia 
Fiske, no longer with us, who wrote so helpfully of mis- 
sions and the Bible, were all young people in mission 
study classes at Silver Bay in those days, I am full of 
admiration and gratitude for what God has wrought 


Ze. 


through this Movement. Although I have not been in 
such close touch with Silver Bay in recent years, | am con- 
fident increasingly good work is being done. The Ameri- 
can Board believes thoroughly in the ideals and methods 
for which Silver Bay stands and is grateful to be a partner 
with the other Boards which are behind the Missionary 
Education Movement. In behalf of myself and my asso- 

ciates I send hearty greetings to the Jubilee audiences. 

Sincerely, 

CORNELIUS H. PATTON, 

Secretary, American Board of Commius- 
stoners for Foreign Missions. 


The Glow of Discovery 


My dear Miss Seabury: 

One looks back to the beginnings of the Missionary 
Education Movement with something of the same feeling 
with which he recalls the beginnings of the Student Vol- 
unteer Movement and of the Laymen’s Missionary Move- 
ment. Each of these sprang out of a genuine living inter- 
est. There was the glow of discovery and adventure and 
fellowship in each of them. They were full of rich, real 
life—of confidence and hopefulness and conviction. A 
great deal that has grown familiar and commonplace now 
was then fresh and new. There was the sense of action 
and achievement and possibility, there was no sense of 
breach between the past and present and old and young, 
but all felt the power of a great stream of life that was 
flowing out of the past and into the future and in which 
all shared together. 


25 


These memories are all specially entwined about Silver 
Bay—with its fullness of denominational intercom- 
munion; its binding together the student and the home 
church groups; its simplicity and directness; its alliance of 
knowledge and duty; its kindling of new interest and the 
expression of that interest in practical service in home 
churches and in new life plans that reached out to the 
end of the world and up to the fullness of God. 

ROBERT E. SPEER, 


Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions 
of the Presbyterian Church 1n_ the 
Lie SMA: 


Class led by eens Ehnes 


26 


All in the Day’s Work 


My dear Miss Seabury: 


The record of the past twenty-five years is so well 
known that very little needs to be said by me in comment 
upon it. It may be useful to the younger generation—for 
I see | am counted among those who are to deal with the 
past—if I say that the thing we did some twenty-five 
years ago which has had such large historic significance, 
was in reality a very ordinary and commonplace thing to 
do (at least it seemed so at the time), and was done in the 
course of an ordinary day’s work. I recall very well the 
meeting with Mr. Vickrey and Mr. Wishard, at Wishard’s 
house, when the first Silver Bay Conference was proposed, 
and I recall also the meeting between Mr. Michener and 
myself, out under a porch at Silver Bay in the rain, when 
the first proposal was made to buy the Silver Bay grounds; 
and of course I recall those glorious days of conference 
with Hicks, Harry Myers, Stevenson, dear old Dr. Mac- 
kay, Sailer and others, as the plans developed. But look- 
ing backward over the whole experience in the course 
of which some of us became founders of a movement, I 
should say that if we did anything worth while it was 
done in a very simple and ordinary way by a small group 
who were sincerely and I believe unselfishly trying to do 
the Master’s will in extending the Kingdom, and who 
were diligently seeking such methods as came to hand for 
making the work committed to us effective. 


I have mentioned the above not because there is any- 
thing heroic or striking in it, but merely because in my 


ZT, 


desert experiences, where I have been able to get away 
from the rush and hurry and worry of committees and 
board meetings, and where I have been able to see things 
somewhat in perspective, it has occurred to me that it 
might be well to emphasize the fact that the founding of 
all great movements has probably come out of the more 
quiet and more ordinary moments of life, in times of deep- 
est sincerity and unselfishness of purpose; and not because 
someone has said, ‘‘Go to, now I will found a great move- 
ment.’ And in going forward prayerfully and devotedly 
with the present task, I believe many who will participate 
in the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Silver Bay Confer- 
ence will be surprised some day, as I am now surprised, to 
find how some simple act, carefully and prayerfully per- 
formed may result, in the long stretch of the years, in hav- 
ing one’s name recorded as one of the founders of a mighty 
movement. 

While this is no part of the official record, I wish you 
would give my love to Sailer, LeSourd, Miss Sturgis, and 
to the host of friends who will be assembled at Silver Bay. 
I wish I could be with them but at present my work is out 
here in the desert. Sometime, possibly, some of those now 
living and in attendance upon Silver Bay may have part in 
founding a new type of conference which will be held out 
here where the tired folks may come apart into a desert 
place and rest a while. 

SO BARE  PAYIUOR: 
Formerly General Secretary of the 
Interchurch World Movement. 


28 


Today 


Ay ho gy OT OS 


2 Pim 


Auditorium and Hotel 


The Present Picture 


In the twenty-five years since that most interesting con- 
ference of 1902, the Movement then organized has grown 
by leaps and bounds. Its activities have increased. It has 
suffered a complete reorganization at the hands of the 
Boards which it came more and more to represent. In the 
first place it was made, after the Inter-Church World Move- 
ment and its finish, into a Representative Board, not de- 
pendent on the individual gifts of casual donors, but regu- 
larly provided for by the denominations of whom now 
some thirty-four are contributing members. The Board 
is chiefly made up of the educational staff of these various 
denominational Boards, plus a number of leaders of rec- 
ognized ability, chosen for their interdenominational con- 
nections. 

Its work, of a quite intensive nature, is carried on through 
three committees,—one on elementary education, one for 
intermediates and young people, and a third for adult edu- 
cation. In addition to these there are of course provisions 
for summer conference activity through the Field Com- 
mittee, and the ever-increasing activity of the Manufactur- 
ing Department, busy with producing more and more 
books under the supervision educationally of the three 
age groups mentioned above. Today there is provided by 
the Movement a complete program of text books and 
materials each year for all grades of the church. In the 
last few years, to supplement the activities of our own 
group we have done more and more in the line of co- 
operation with the British Movement, and through that 
Movement have imported most valuable materials, espe- 
cially for Beginners, in which field we ourselves have been 


31 


ha 


weak. The range of materials includes books, courses for 
leaders, all most carefully graded, pictures, maps, stories, 
reading books, dramatic materials, handwork suggestions 
and programs. The use of these materials is developed 
entirely through the denominational Boards, for whom the 
Missionary Education Movement acts as the educational 
publishing agent. 

The wide use of these publications is shown by the 
report of the Business Manager given at the annual meet- 
ing of the Board of Managers in January 1927, which 
shows that during the previous year the Movement pub- 
lished 249,961 books, 30,500 Suggestions to Leaders, and 
other publications such as maps, plays, stories and pictures 


a2 


Silver Bay — Showing 


a 
” 


me, Plain al Lake 


sufficient to bring the total number of new publications 
for 1926 to 429,561. It was most interesting to all mem- 
bers of the Board when a similar report of 1924 publica- 
tions was given in graphic form from which we quote the 
following paragraphs: 

“In the year 1924 the total publications of the Mis- 
sionary Education Movement were 351,000 books and 
324,200: Suggestions to Leaders, picture stories, dramas, 
pamphlets, leaflets, maps, etc., making a total of 675,200 
new publications for the year. We might add to this 226,- 
825 pieces of advertising material which were sent out 
without charge. 

“During this year, for instance, we published 20,000 
copies of TORCHBEARERS IN CHINA, which if piled 


515, 


one on top of the other flat would make a pile 1,041 feet 
high. The Woolworth tower is 792 feet, so the TORCH- 
BEARER pile would be 249 feet higher than the Wool- 
worth tower. 

“Just to give you an idea of the height in feet of some 
of the different editions of our books, if laid flat one on 
top of the other, 50,000 copies of THE CLASH OF 
COLOR would be 2,344 feet high; 80,000 CHINA’S 
REAL REVOLUTION would make a pile 3,750 feet 
high; 5,500 ADVENTURES SINS BROPEHERTOOD 
would make a pile 2,578 feet high. The total height of 
the home books published in 1924 would be 6,648 feet 
or over nine times the height of the Woolworth tower. The 
total number of foreign books published would be 7,135 
feet or over seven times the height of the Eiffel tower. 
The total of all books published this year when piled 
one on top of the other would be 16,450 or over 2,000 
feet higher than Pike’s Peak. To print the aforementioned 
books and pamphlets required more than five car loads 
of paper or over eighty tons.”’ 

The summer conference movement spread until at its 
peak there were held across the country six most vigorous 
interdenominational conferences, fostered by the Move- 
ment but directed by territorial committees elected by the 
Board. The increase of religious education and denomina- 
tional conferences and our desire to co-operate as far as 
possible in building missionary education into the fabric 
of religious education, has resulted in the dropping off of 
one or two of our conferences to strengthen other confer- 
ences in those areas. “Today conferences are held in Blue 
Ridge, North Carolina; Ocean Park, Maine; Seebeck, 


34 


Washington; Assilomar, California; and Silver Bay, New 
York. In all of these the aim today is the development 
of trained missionary education leadership. We ask that 
delegates be picked from the leaders or potential leaders of 
the church. We aim for quality and definitness of service 
rather than quantity, and our program is built with that 
need in mind, largely on a normal training basis. 

‘Today the working staff of the Movement consists of 
an Educational Secretary, Franklin D. Cogswell, who is 
mainly responsible for the producing of educational mate- 
rials; a Conference and Promotion Secretary, Gilbert Q. 
LeSourd; a Business Manager, Herbert L. Hill; a Secre- 
tary of Elementary Work, Miss Elizabeth Harris; and a 
Field Secretary, Edgar H. Rue. Three of these have had 
actual experience in foreign mission work, Mr. Cogswell 
in India, Miss Harris in Turkey, and Mr. Rue in Malay- 
sia. Dr. LeSourd has been both a pastor and a high school 
teacher. Mr. Hill and Miss Harris both spent several years 
in important fields of full time Sunday school work. Thus 
in addition to expert training in secular and religious edu- 
cation, the members of the staff bring to the work of the 
Movement a wealth of experience in the various fields most 
closely associated with its activities. 

In addition to the several secretaries, there is of course 
an expert staff of editorial and business personnel, pro- 
ducing more and more materials, both experimental and 
standard. It has, for example, been an established policy 
that course books for children’s leaders were to be tried out 
before publishing. Miss Harris has been able herself to 
try out some of these with groups of children or to super- 
vise the trying out with others. Silver Bay under Dr. 


oy) 


LeSourd’s direction has become more and more the ex- 
perimental station where new courses could be tried, new 
theories of missionary education evolved, and new objec- 
tives for missionary education studied. Much of the dra- 
matic material,—pageants, plays, short sketches,—has been 
tried out in summer conferences, especially at Silver Bay, 
and is therefore of double value to the local church trying 
it for the first time. 


What all this has meant in a gradually more intensive 
program, in a gradually widening group of trained leaders, 
and in a deepening of spiritual interest, no one can esti- 
mate. We have seen the results in many a church, set on 
fire by a delegate sent to a conference and confronted for 
the first time with material that really challenged his own 
educational ability, that really impressed his own intellect- 
ually trained mind, and that really stirred his interest to 
the depths. More and more we have been able to co-oper- 
ate with the great group of religious education conference 
leader, training groups and Boards, that the day may speed- 
ily come when missionary education will be not an attach- 
ment on the surface, but a part of the whole structure of 
Christian education. 


RUTH ISABEL SEABURY, 


Educational Secretary of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions. 


36 


Tomorrow 


ik 


Denominational Buildings and Auditorium 


The Outlook for Misstonary Education 
Ih 


The clerk of an ordinary hotel offers two kinds of 
rooms, with and without bath. The popular impression is 
that there are two kinds of Christianity, with and without 
missionary interest. As to hotel rooms, there is no differ- 
ence of opinion as to which is the more desirable. As to 
Christianity, there is no such consensus. Many church 
members think of the missionary ideal as a harmless eccen- 
tricity like boarding school French. Some, with Mrs. 
Jellyby in mind, regard it as positively distracting and 
narrowing. A majority would consider that a person can 
be a quite normal and respectable Christian without hav- 
ing any concern for such matters as home and foreign mis- 
sions. 

For many, to be a Christian means to accept Christian- 
ity as one’s own religion, minding one’s own business re- 
ligiously and letting others mind theirs; to be a missionary 
means that one shall become a religious nuisance insisting 
that others shall believe as we do. 

We recognize in this conception of the word missionary 
a caricature made current by certain journalists, novelists, 
and playwrights. Of course there have been missionary 
cranks, narrow-minded dogmatists who were sure that 
every detail of their own beliefs was right and everything 
different from it wrong, but these have not been nearly 
so numerous as has been represented. Missionary work in 
practice, like that of all organized institutions, has often 
been open to criticism. It may have been too paternalistic 
or partisan in spirit, have neglected wholesome aspects of 


BY 


Christian life, or have made too particular demands in the 
way of doctrine or discipline. 

Admitting for argument’s sake that missionary work, 
like other activities of the church, has often been badly 
executed, the question remains, is the missionary spirit 
something that can be left out of the Christian religion? 
Is Christianity without it as normal a type as Christianity 
with it? In other words, what is the essential character 
of Christianity ? 

There are two ways of defining the nature of a thing: 
to tell what it is, or what it does; to describe its structure 
or its functions. For some decades the latter method has 
been gaining ground. Especially when we come to im- 
material things it seems to be our only resource. No one 
can say what electricity, or life, or thought, or spirit, 
really 1s. But we have made considerable headway in de- 
termining what these things do. Therefore, instead of 
summing up the facts about Christianity, its beliefs, or- 
ganization, and practice, we may better seek its essential 
character in what it does. 

What does Christianity do? Perhaps the most common 
answer to this question would be that it saves. This word 
means different things to different persons. One hundred 
years ago the emphasis was more on its negative and ind1- 
vidual aspects. Christianity saved from hell and sin and 
death. It saved individuals from the world and led them, 
one by one or in small groups, to the heavenly city. More 
recently we have been emphasizing the positive and social 
aspects of salvation. We are saved for more abundant life 
and service, to work out the kingdom of God on earth, in 


40 


which God's will shall be done as in heaven. In order to 
uphold one of these viewpoints it is not necessary to op- 
pose the other. Christianity saves from selfishness and sin 
in order that we may serve more effectively. God works 
in us in order that he may work through us. We must 
forego the mere pleasure of the world in order that we 
may make it God’s kingdom. 

Salvation represents the outgoing love and purpose of 
God for all mankind. This purpose includes every phase 
of life. It is not salvation from the world, but of the 
world, with all its human relationships. But so far as we 
know, it works only through human agencies. “The essen- 
tial character of Christianity, what it does, is therefore 
to energize individuals in active sharing of the love and 
purpose of God for all mankind. The amount of electricity 
is measured by its ability to transmit against resistance. 
The same is true of life and of thought. So Christianity 
is measured by its power of transmission. It receives only 
to share. It blesses us in proportion to the extent to which 
we are a blessing to others. 

Years ago Prof. Henry S. Nash, of Cambridge, wrote: 
“The deeper the Christian’s life with God, the more 
deeply does he enter into the common lot, and the more 
seriously does he take his relationships with his fellows 

The Christian’s God, the Christian’s self, the 
Christian’s neighbor,—these are the three component ele- 
ments of ultimate reality. “hey may not be disentangled. 
Not one of the three can be fully known or appreciated 
without the others. If the Christian takes his own soul 
to be a more solid reality than his relation to his neighbor, 


41 


if he thinks away his social obligations in order to reach 
divine reality, he loses all. His neighbor and he are co- 
ordinated realities. Only in their common substance and 
value can the true God be known as He knows Himself.”’ 

In other words, reality is triangular. Each angle must 
take both the others into account. The mystic who neg- 
lects his neighbor in order to draw nearer to God misses 
the best spiritual growth, and the social worker who thinks 
to do his work more effectively by leaving God out of 
consideration is fatally injuring his own highest social 
usefulness. 

In defining the essential character of Christianity in this 
way, we have also defined the missionary ideal, which is 
the active sharing of the love and purpose of God for all 
mankind. ‘Transmitting power is the measuring unit of 
both the missionary spirit and essential Christianity. 
Where the missionary spirit sinks to zero, essential Chris- 
tianity also disappears, retaining the word and the form, 
but lacking the power. 

This spirit puts first things first, but is concerned with 
every phase of life. We recognize that all good things 
come from God, blessings physical, economic, social and 
political as well as spiritual. We rate some of these bless- 
ings as more important than others, but if we have a right 
to ask them for ourselves we should also desire them for 
all mankind. Therefore the missionary spirit undertakes 
to share with others everything that we consider has been 
a blessing to us, whatever contributes to the best welfare 
of body, mind, and spirit. Above all things, we shall 


a2 


A Classroom in Use 


give ourselves in personal fellowship—-sometimes the 
hardest gift of all. 


We make considerable use of the word functional. It 
means fulfilling the purpose for which a thing exists. The 
purpose for which Christians exist is to transmit God to 
the world, and to find therein that higher satisfaction which 
is known as eternal life. A Christianity which transmits 
God effectively is a functional Christianity, and thereby 
becomes missionary in spirit. 


In secular education the functional idea has been for 
some time coming to the front. We used to study certain 
subjects as necessary tools, frequently learning exercises 
with them that we never expected to perform in life, and 
certain other subjects, such as geography and history, as 


43 


desirable information, much of which we promptly for- 
got for lack of use. Now we are taking as our point 
of departure the problems of life, and selecting our sub- 
ject matter in a way that shall help us to solve these. Other 
subjects that do not bear upon these problems are being 
made electives. It is this trend in secular education towards 
meeting the ordinary needs of life which has so increased 
its importance in the minds of thinking men. Education 
is becoming our main reliance as an agency for social prog- 
ress. 

In the same way religious education must develop. We 
must begin with the great tasks of the Christian church 
and construct our education so that it will enable us to 
discharge them. Every subject and factor will be measured 
by its contribution to useful Christian living. Many sub- 
jects that lay a broad background and promote intelligent 
understanding will be retained. We need to study the de- 
veloping revelation of God’s love in the Old Testament, 
its supreme manifestation in Christ, its broadening appli- 
cation to all nations and races and to every phase of human 
life since. Since the main purpose of this is to help us to 
transmit God’s love more effectively, the major division of 
our study must consider where it is most needed and how 
it can be applied. Religious education that has reached 
this point of development has simply become missionary 
and the difference between it and missionary education 
disappears. 


Such conceptions will react on the lives of individual 
Christians and on the whole life of the church. It will 
broaden and deepen individuals. It will enlarge their sym- 


44 


pathies and give them something better to think about 
than entertaining themselves. It will furnish what Dr. 
John Dewey calls the supreme and final happiness which 
is due to the abiding maintenance of socialized interests 
as central springs of action. It will extend its interests to 
every race of mankind. It will include social service, but 
the fact that it is for Christ’s sake will provide a deeper 
motive. It will not be content with merely material ben- 
efits any more than a Christian parent would be for his 
own children. 

Its use of Christ’s name must not be a mere label. ‘There 
are probably many acts of service done without conscious 
reference to Christ which he will acknowledge, and many 
perfunctory benevolences accompanied by pious phrases 
that he will disown. Missionary work must be based on 
a fairly adequate conception of God’s purpose for the 
world, and motivated by a desire to be freely spent in real- 
izing this. Such a motive will give us a desire for the 
indwelling power of God that will arise in no other way. 
It will throw us back on the power of God because we 
are attempting things too great to perform without that 
power. 

It will also affect every part of the life of the church. 
How different the organization and administration of 
many churches would be if they really put first a desire 
actively to share the love and purpose of God with all 
mankind. How different much of our worship would 
be, our hymns, prayers, anthems, and sermons. At present 
a stranger might attend the services of many churches for 
a long time without suspecting that the essential spirit of 


45 


Ao te 


“‘Overlook’’— Showing one of the Residence Halls 


Christianity was outgoing service. A new conception 
would arise as to the significance of church membership; 
not occasional nor even regular attendance at ecclesiastical 
worship, not enrolment in a spiritual sanatarium, not 
social participation in the life of a parochial club, but en- 
listment in an army for achievement. 

It is evident that an ideal of this kind will immensely 
stimulate support for all the present organized work of 
the church that reaches out for co-operative service. It 
will challenge new forms of service. The modern church 
has abdicated its official responsibility for some of the im- 
portant things of life. On many problems, racial, inter- 


46 


national or industrial, it is sometimes indifferent, some- 
times misinformed, and usually incompetent from lack of 
machinery. Indifference and ignorance are surely inexcus- 
able. Incompetence may be a valid reason for official in- 
action. The obligation remains, however, either to discover 
and endorse some machinery which Christianity may util- 
ize in helping to settle these questions, or to create such 
machinery. It will help to remove the reproach cast on 
Christianity for its impotence in the face of public evils. 
On the other hand, it will work out more richly in the 
personal relationships of life, finding opportunities of mis- 
sionary service for all of us within our families, com- 
munities, vocations, and personal contacts of every kind. 
The individual who took advantage of every such oppor- 
tunity to share the love and purpose of God for all man- 
kind would have a new insight into the mind of Christ. 


A functional Christianity will be a tonic to the lives of 
individual Christians and to the worship of the church. 
It will stimulate organized Christianity to greater efficiency. 
But it is most urgently needed because it is the only hope 
of the world. Secular agencies function on other than the 
highest planes. Even when they attain higher standards 
of efficiency than Christianity they cannot do its work. It 
alone deals with the absolutely fundamental problems of 
human nature. If it has no solutions for world needs, or 
is too indifferent to bring them to bear, the most important 
things in this life will simply go undone. 


47 


ibe 


If Christians achieve this conception of Christianity they 
will naturally demand a type of education that prepares 
young people to be active transmitters. In considering the 
outlook for missionary education, we may say that it can 
afford to disappear as a separate department when religious 
education becomes thoroughly functional. 


The first thing for us to do is to begin to live more 
practical Christian lives during the seven days of the week. 
Unless we practice this, we shall not only discredit our 
message to others, but undermine our own desire to deliver 
the message. Perhaps the most wholesome program of 
missionary education that could be set up in the church 
would begin with a more missionary spirit in daily life. 
It should infect first our personal prayer and worship, our 
ordinary meditation and planning, our use of time and 
money, and gradually broaden our outlook to the ends of 
the earth. The personal contacts are needed to give quality 
and sincerity, and the larger vision to give breadth and 
perspective. 

This is emphatically the way in which essential Chris- 
tianity should be developed in the lowest grades. Little 
children should first experience the satisfaction of mutual 
service and fellowship and of consideration for those who 
are in special need. The desire for helpful friendliness 
should be taken for granted. Practice should come before 
theory; service to the near and familiar before that for 
the more remote. If we do not first love those whom we 
have seen, how can we love those whom we have not 
seen, or even God? At the same time very early we may 


48 


begin to create a consciousness of the love of God as some- 
thing yet larger and more inclusive than the love of parents 
for their own children. 

Unfortunately, the example of adults is not always 
an aid. Great pains will be necessary to avoid having 
children imitate the casual attitude which so many Chris- 
tians have towards service, as if it were an altogether op- 
tional performance. On the other hand, we must not be 
too severe in our demands and thereby arouse the distaste 
that is often felt for a duty too rigidly enforced. 

As childish interest deepens and the circle of knowledge 
widens, sympathy should correspondingly enlarge. Con- 
ceptions of need should become less trivial and interests 
extend farther from home. The love of God for those of 
every race and class should be axiomatic from the first. 
The kindly spirit of family fellowship should naturally 
spread to the community, the whole nation, and the 
world. There should be careful watch for the devastating 
prejudices acquired from elders which so frequently trans- 
form generous-minded children into callous snobs. 

Some secular schools are adopting courses in social 
studies which help in supplying a socialized and interna- 
tional outlook. The church should take the fullest ad- 
vantage of this and build upon it. It should certainly not 
permit itself to be behind secular education in the breadth 
of its outlook and sympathy. It should never permit itself 
to be regarded as a local convenience, but always as an 
agency for world service. It should treat its external obli- 
gations like interest on preferred stock. 


49 


Young people should have systematic presentation of 
the responsibilities of the church at home and abroad in 
their relative importance, not overlooking the opportuni- 
ties for personal service which are close at hand and, on 
the other hand, not underestimating the magnitude of the 
needs that are seen in distant perspective. In particular 
they should be taught to think of those agencies which 
represent the co-operative effort of the church as they think 
of those of the state. It undermines citizenship when taxes 
are looked upon as a disagreeable demand to be evaded as 
far as possible, instead of a cheerful contribution for com- 
mon benefits. In the same way, giving to church boards 
and other co-operative organizations should be considered 
as personal service necessarily rendered by proxy. 


Having grown up into such attitudes of service, young 
people will be prepared to appreciate the reasons for them. 
They will turn to Christ, not as one to be honored with 
titles while disregarded as a practical example, but rather 
as one who saves here and now from selfishness and nar- 
rowness those who follow him. The working of God’s 
spirit, enlarging and enriching the minds of men from the 
days of the first record to the present, will capture their 
enthusiasm. 


Finally, as this education does its work, appreciation 
will deepen of the shortcomings of our organized Chris- 
tianity, and young people will be ready to join in intelli- 
gent discussion as to how our machinery may be improved. 
The reason why we receive so little intelligent criticism of 


50 


church work is that most persons have such vague concep- 
tions of a functional Christianity. 


Into such a program as this, missionary education in the 
narrower sense is not inserted as an extraneous patch. It 
is not even integrated as a result of ingenuity. It just 
naturally belongs there because the whole conception is 
missionary in the broader sense. It is indispensable because 
it illustrates Christianity dealing systematically with its 
largest tasks. 


1G % 


The future of missionary education is bound up with 
some such program as this. In order to achieve it we shall 
need four things: workers who can transmit and prepare 
others to transmit; a curriculum altogether functional in 
character; effective methods; a machinery that is adequate. 


In many of our local churches at present religious edu- 
cation is being conducted by volunteer workers without 
special training, using a curriculum planned for a genera- 
tion ago, with traditional methods, and with usually not 
more than an hour a week for both teaching and worship. 
This education is not based on a conception of the essen- 
tially missionary character of Christianity. The teachers 
lack the insight into this conception, and the enthusiasm 
and knowledge necessary to make it effective. The curricu- 
lum furnishes biblical material which is treated mainly as 
information, with its missionary implications left unde- 
veloped. The method too frequently consists of a talk by 
the teacher or in formal questioning. The time is too 


51 


short to do justice to a topic of real importance, though 
many teachers find it too long for their resources. 

Under such circumstances missionary education is re- 
garded as an extra or of secondary importance. Special 
exercises are sometimes inserted in the regular program, 
but most of the work is usually done in missionary soci- 
eties. “There is a feeling on the part of many church mem- 
bers that there is not enough to missions to justify any 
further provision of time. 

1. In preparing to introduce the new conception we 
must first get the church wired for transmission. For this 
we shall need literally live wires, active conductors, persons 
who are connected with the right ideas and spirit, and who 
have the ability to transmit them to others. 

In some cases pastors are such persons, but many pastors 
have neither the time nor the special talents for training 
others. In general, local churches are weak in preparing for 
effective service. hey get a certain amount of work done; 
they do comparatively little to improve its quality. Many 
churches remind one of a great steamship, with elaborate 
organization and appointments, with officers to direct, 
stewards to serve, and stokers down below feeding the 
engines; vibrating with life and energy but steering in no 
particular direction, with no assurance that it is nearer to 
any particular destination today than when it took its 
last reckoning. Like a mighty multitude moves the church 
of God, but hardly like a mighty army. 

The only way in which missionary education can hope 
to catch up with its main task is to move faster. When 
the Turkish republic abolished the fez the hat factories 


DZ 


worked over time to supply the public. The church needs 
missionary leaders more than the Turks needed hats, and 
it must be willing to sit up of nights if necessary in order 
to produce competent leaders on a large scale. The kind 
we need first are those who can multiply themselves. As 
Mr. Moody used to say: ‘‘It is better to set ten men to 
work than to do the work of ten men.’’ But mere quan- 
tity will not be sufficient. The quality of workers is even 
more important. It will be a most difficult job for the 
church to secure an adequate working force, but we can 
usually have what we want in this life if we are deter- 
mined to have it and willing to sacrifice sufficiently for it. 


A Pageant 


ee) 


Is there anything more important for the church today 
than to acquire and transmit to its membership and 
through them to the world an essentially missionary con- 
ception of Christianity? What proportion of its total 
energy is the average church putting into this problem? 

The first thing to do is to look around for the best 
transmitters. The pastor would naturally be the chief of 
these, but he needs many helpers. We must avoid the 
persons who are more noted for fidelity than magnetism; 
likewise those without weight of purpose or character. 
Occasionally, however, a heavy current will accomplish 
wonders with conductors that seem unpromising. It may 
be necessary to set choice individuals free from other re- 
sponsibilities in order to concentrate on this matter. 

The next thing is to connect with a dynamo of some 
sort. Many churches possess nothing of the kind and do 
not know enough to hunt for it. They maintain tra- 
ditional programs, of very low interest, that yield no 
practical results. Such churches cannot be expected to gen- 
erate sufficient power by their own efforts. What they 
need is to connect with a higher voltage. The pastor, the 
leading workers, the young people, should be sent to some 
gathering surcharged with new ideas and more powerful 
enthusiasm. No church has any business to conduct its 
educational work feebly and inefficiently when contact 
with outside thought and energy would enable it to do 
better. This is a practical responsibility of local congre- 
gations that is generally overlooked—to see that workers 
in good positions shall receive the training and stimulus 


DA 


they need. Neglect of opportunities along this line is a 
blunder and a sin. 

It will also help to connect local batteries, to form dis- 
trict organizations for discussion and interchange of leader- 
ship. Churches which have been successful should share 
their experiences with others and lend them workers. 
Teachers who are called to serve more than one congrega- 
tion will be challenged to more thorough preparation for 
their work. 

It is of the greatest importance to concentrate from the 
first on quality. Our plan is too essential to be spoiled by 
the sort of teaching which many churches have to put up 
with at present. The largest use should be made of mis- 
sionary summer training conferences and these should be 
supplemented by winter institutes. We must set up all 
over the church today what is known as upgrading re- 
ligious education of the missionary type, with short in- 
tensive courses for prominent workers, to help them turn 
out a higher grade of work. If pastors need three years of 
special training, those who undertake such tasks as these 
should have at least one year. There are many in churches 
who by making the most of their opportunities could 
obtain the equivalent of this in a few seasons. 

2. The curriculum of religious education is at present 
in process of reconstruction. We have reason to believe 
that we shall ultimately have something that recognizes 
the functional character of Christianity. Meanwhile, the 
use of the courses on this subject issued by such organiza- 
tions as the Missionary Education Movement will help in 
leading to better things. They will help us in developing 


55 


the missionary implications of such courses as we have, and 
will stimulate interest in courses representing the active 
side of Christian world service. Working out an adequate 
curriculum of this type will be a long process, with much 
experimenting and revision. The important thing is to 
keep moving in the right direction. 

3. When education becomes functional it always 
challenges the traditional academic methods. There is a 
constant temptation to level down to what is most com- 
fortable and practicable for the teacher, rather than to level 
teachers up to what is most profitable for the pupil. In 
secular education the newer ideas are challenging teachers 
to self-improvement. Summer schools are crowded as never 
before. All over the country teachers are working out 
experiments, and descriptions of these are being eagerly 
read. 

It is time that missionary education made more system- 
atic contributions along this line. A conference held in 
New York City in April, 1927, has formulated a tenta- 
tive list of missionary objectives for various age groups. 
With this as a basis, missionary workers are being urged 
to undertake practical experiments for comparison and 
criticism. It is to be hoped that as a result of this we shall 
soon have a richer store of methods in missionary educa- 
tion on which to draw. Much of the outlook for mission- 
ary education depends on the efficiency with which these 
plans are developed and made available. 

4. No one can plan improvements in religious educa- 
tion without soon being brought up against the fact that 
we are greatly cramped for time and resources. In secular 


56 


schools it is generally considered that a subject must be 
given at least two sessions a week in order to maintain 
interest in it. Yet we are expected to arouse interest in 
religious instruction in a single session each week, only 
part of which is given to teaching and discussion. One 
of the best ways to secure more time is to make our work 
seem more worth while. A great deal of religious educa- 
tion at present is in a vicious circle. It is so lacking in 
specific aims and efficient achievement that it arouses no 
enthusiasm or sacrifice. In many Sunday schools it is hard 
to secure persons of ability as teachers because the work 
does not seem worth their time. Scholars are irregular in 
attendance because the teachers they have are uninspiring. 
Yet the only way to improve the quality is to arouse the 
enthusiasm and sacrifice of able teachers. 

The only thing that will unlock the door is greater 
effectiveness. Let us first help the church to realize the im- 
portance of a missionary conception of Christianity. Let 
us next undertake to provide an education for all children 
and young people which will prepare them to live up to 
this conception and become efficient Christian citizens of 
the world. Let us in spite of all our present handicaps 
keep sounding out our program, improving the quality of 
our teachers, using the methods that will command the 
respect and arouse the enthusiasm of our pupils. By treat- 
ing the matter with deadly seriousness we shall secure the 
increasing co-operation of serious-minded people. With 
such a program the present provision of time will seem 
altogether inadequate. Under such circumstances we can 
make our most persuasive plea for more time. If the work 


sit 


we are doing gets results worth achieving, the church will 
find time for it. If it does not get these results, it will 
not deserve time. 

The outlook for missionary education is bright. Its 
importance is being recognized by the most progressive 
thinkers on religious education. The tide seems to be set- 
ting in our direction. This is no excuse for resting on our 
oars. In view of the fundamental subject which we study 
for the first time this year, we are rather called upon to 
redouble our efforts in order that we may help to lift 
the whole educational program of the church to a higher 
plane. 

iSite SALLE 
Educational Adviser of the Board of For- 
eign Miss:ons, Presbyterian Church in 
the Uae Ss As 


Telling the Missionary Story 


58 


MISSION BOARDS CO-OPERATING IN THE 
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 


Northern Baptist Convention 
American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
American Baptist Home Mission Society 


Department of Missionary Education of the Board of 
Education 


Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society 


National Baptist Convention 


Home Mission Board 


Church of the Brethren 
General Mission Board 


United Brethren in Christ 
Foreign Missionary Society 


Christian Church (General Convention) 
Home Mission Department of the Mission Board 
Foreign Mission Department of the Mission Board 


Congregational 
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 
American Missionary Association 
Sunday School Extension Society 
Congregational Education Society 
Congregational Home Missionary Society 


59 


Disctples of Christ 
United Christian Missionary Society 


Protestant Episcopal 
Department of Missions of the National Council 


Friends 


American Friends Board of Foreign Missions 


The United Lutheran Church tn America 
Board of Foreign Missions 
Women’s Missionary Society 


Methodist Episcopal Church 


Department of Missionary Education of the World 
Service Agencies 


Board of Foreign Missions 
Board of Home Missions and Church Extension 
Board of Education 


Methodist Eptscopal Church, South 
Executive Committee of the Board of Missions 


Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 


Department of Missionary Education of the Board of 
Christian Education 


Board of Foreign Missions 
Board of National Missions 


Presbyterian Church in the U. S. 


Executive Committee of the Board of Foreign Missions 


60 


United Presbyterian Church of North America 
Board of Foreign Missions 


Reformed Church in the U. S. 
Department of Missionary Education 


Reformed Church tn America 


Board of Foreign Missions 


CANADIAN SECTION 


United Church of Canada 
Canadian Baptist 


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